History Recap / TheTwilightZone1985S1E16

* BitchInSheepsClothing: The Tooth Fairy grants Myron's wish for Lydia's love and his patients' respect. When the admiration becomes suffocating, Myron is forced to leave his life behind and hop a freight train to escape. He learns that all the hobos sharing his boxcar used to be dentists themselves, the Tooth Fairy having played the same ruse on them. It's there that the audience learns that the Tooth Fairy was using Myron and all the other dentists for his own means, getting them out of the way so he can keep collecting peoples' teeth. It's even worse because the Tooth Fairy met Myron ''saving his life from a failed suicide''.

* {{Hobos}}: After Myron escapes his obsessive patients by hopping a freight train, he meets six hobos who were all former dentists, each of them having a similar run-in with the Tooth Fairy.

* InterruptedSuicide: In a lapse of severe depression, Myron is about to hang himself from the light fixture in his office, when Lydia enters looking for her lost hairbrush. Feeling that he has nothing to lose, Myron asks Lydia on a date, but she turns him down. After she leaves, Myron tries to hang himself again, but the light fixture breaks, resulting in him landing in the arms of the Tooth Fairy.
* JackassGenie: Myron wishes the Tooth Fairy for his crush Lydia to love him back, and for his patients to respect him. The Fairy grants it, but Lydia's love is overwhelming and his patients won't leave him alone. He ends up hopping a freight train to get away from it all, where he meets other dentists who have gone through the same thing. Apparently, the Tooth Fairy is running a con by ruining the lives of dentists everywhere, because he wants more and more people to lose their teeth.

* LoserProtagonist: Myron feels that he is a complete failure unworthy of love and respect because of his occupation as a dentist. When the Tooth Fairy saves his life from a bungled suicide and offers to grant him a wish, he wishes that the love of his life will return his affection and his patients will treat him with a great deal of respect. He soon grows tired of the nonstop admiration and ends up hopping a freight train to get away from it all. He meets six homeless men on the train who all turn out to have been dentists themselves, the Tooth Fairy having played the same ruse with them to ruin dentists everywhere so he'll have more business. If their wishes were all the same as Myron's, it can be safe to assume that ''every dentist on Earth'' is just as pathetic as him.

Brothers Will and Roger (Stephen Geoffreys and Robert Prescott) arrive at a derelict factory to search for their father, a prominent scientist who was working on developing a new type of super-food to solve world hunger. Arriving at the factory, the brothers look for their father, only to discover the carcasses of giant animals, such as rats, cats, and dogs. They soon come to the revelation that their father's food allowed the animals to grow when they broke in and ate it. They also discover that some of these giant animals are deadlier than others.

* CanisMajor: Roger and Will find the corpse of a dog that ate their father's super-food and became giant, after which it was killed by the spider.

* FlawedPrototype: The brothers' father's super-food was meant to feed billions of people for very little money. Instead, it causes animals to grow to huge sizes when they eat it.
* GiantSpider: A spider got into the super-food developed by Roger and Will's father and grew giant-sized. It then killed the smaller-but-still-giant cat and dog, and possibly what was left of the giant rats. When Roger and Will call the factory's elevator, the spider grabs them with its pedipalps and eats them.

* MegaNeko: Roger and Will find a dead housecat that grew as big as a tiger after eating their father's super-food, which was also killed by the spider.
* NoodleIncident: Roger reminds Will of when their father gave the latter a chemistry set for Christmas, then immediately took it back from him and blew up half of the basement.
* PowerUpFood: The super-food the brothers' father was working on allows for massive growth when eaten.

* RodentsOfUnusualSize: Roger and Will learn that their father's super-food causes extreme growth when ingested, as they find the bodies of several giant rats around the factory, each bigger than the last.

Mitchell Chaplain (Creator/CotterSmith), a cold, bitter, distant, unpleasant man in a dystopian future, is arrested for not being emotionally connected with his fellow man and sentenced to a year of "invisiblity". He is surgically given a brand on his forehead that enforces everyone around him to ignore and shun him under the threat of being subjected to the same punishment. While Mitchell at first enjoys being able to do whatever he wants and not get called out, the isolation slowly gets to him, as well as the fact that people can abuse his invisibility just as much as he can.

* HereWeGoAgain: When Mitchell spots the invisible woman he saw during his sentence, who begs him to acknowledge her, Mitchell gives her a comforting hug. The security drones immedieately confront him, who tell him that he's being sentenced to another year of invisibility. The closing narration notes that Mitchell faced his second sentence with pride, however.
* HopeSpot: When he uses his video phone to call the hospital after he's hit by a car, Mitchell is told by the nurse that his files can't be accessed nor can help be sent to him without ''faceprint identifcation''. Mitchell tries to dodge having his face scanned by saying he's too wounded to look up, but the nurse insists on having him scanned if he wants help. Sure enough, Mitchell is forced to reveal his mark, which prompts the nurse to just hang up.

* InvisibleJerkass: Mitchell is punished for his dismissive attitude by being given an implant that ensures everyone must ignore him and act as if he was not there. He initially takes advantage of his status at first, serving himself in a restaraunt, stealing booze from a liquor store, and ogling the women in a spa's steam room. He only learns that it's a punishment at all because he soon starts going crazy from having nobody to talk to. Everybody keeps ignoring him even when he gets hit by a car and needs medical attention, as the hospital can only assist someone in need by ''scanning their faceprint''.
* {{Irony}}: Mitchell is sentenced to a year of invisibility for the crime of "coldness", yet he and others are forced to be "cold" towards other invisibles. In the end, he defies this and comforts an invisible woman who he had attempted to interact while under punishment.

* MechaMooks: Floating security robots continously monitor the citizens, keeping a close eye on Mitchell and the other invisibles to ensure that no one interacts with them.

Dr. Myron Mandel (David Birney) is a dentist who suffers from chronic and suicidal depression, being continously reminded that his line of work renders him as pathetic and worthless in everyone else's eyes, especially Lydia Bixby (Teresa Ganzel), the woman whom he longs for. When he botches an attempt to hang himself, Myron is rescued by a man identifying as the Tooth Fairy (Creator/KennethMars), who decides to grant the hopeless dentist a wish. Myron uses his wish to have his dream girl fall in neverending love for him, and to have him be the most popular man in his town. Myron soon discovers, however, that rampant popularity isn't all it's cracked up to be.

* {{Hobos}}: After Myron escapes his obsessive patients by hopping a freight train, he meets six hobos who were all former dentists, each of them having a similar run in with the Tooth Fairy.

* TookALevelInKindness: Mitchell recieves a lot of compassion, empathy, and humility thanks to his sentence.

* ButtMonkey: Poor Myron is one unlucky man. At first, all his patients hate him and can’t get a date to save his life, and he becomes so miserable that he tries to commit suicide. After the Tooth Fairy grants his wish to make Lydia fall in love with him and make people like him, the episode immediately skips to the near future, where he’s once again miserable due to Lydia and his patients smothering him, forcing him to quit his job, leave town, and become a hobo.

* KarmaHoudini: The Tooth Fairy gets no punishment for ruining the lives of Myron and several dentists.

* EvilIsPetty: The Tooth Fairy visits dentists and grants them wishes which backfire horribly enough to force them to become homeless bums, all so he can keep collecting teeth and putting quarters under kids' pillows.

-> "Women, it is said, rarely go out with men who say "Now spit." A good example: Dr. Myron Mandel, who put a tooth under his pillow and wished for love, but probably should've settled -- for a quarter."

* ToothFairy: He appears as a bearded young-to-middle-aged man in a red and black suit who magically appears in Myron's office after his failed suicide, and offers to give him anything he wants. Myron wishes to be liked and respected by his patients, and for Lydia to fall madly in love with him. The constant adulation soon proves to be too much for Myron, and he leaves town by sneaking on a freight train. He meets six homeless men who all turn out to be former dentists, each of them having had their own run-ins with the Tooth Fairy. Myron learns that he was just another pawn in the Fairy's scheme to rid the world of dentists so he'll have more business.

Brothers Will and Roger arrive at a derelict factory to search for their father, a prominent scientist working on developing a new type of super-food to solve world hunger. Arriving at the factory, the brothers look for their father, only to discover the carcasses of giant animals, such as rats, cats, and dogs. They soon come to the revelation that their father's food allowed the animals to grow when they broke in and ate it. They also discover that some of these giant animals are deadlier than others.

Mitchell Chaplain, a cold, bitter, distant, unpleasant man in a dystopian future, is arrested for not being emotionally connected with his fellow man and sentenced to a year of "invisiblity". He is surgically given a brand on his forehead that enforces everyone around him to ignore and shun him under the threat of being subjected to the same punishment. While Mitchell at first enjoys being able to do whatever he wants and not get called out, the isolation slowly gets to him, as well as the fact that people can abuse his invisibility just as much as he can.

Dr. Myron Mandel is a dentist who suffers from chronic depression, being continously reminded that his line of work renders him as pathetic and worthless in everyone else's eyes, especially Lydia Bixby, the woman whom he longs for. When he botches an attempt to hang himself, Myron is rescued by a man identifying as the Tooth Fairy, who decides to grant the hopeless dentist a wish. Myron uses his wish to have his dream girl fall in neverending love for him, and to have him be the most popular man in his town. Myron soon discovers, however, that rampant popularity isn't all it's cracked up to be.

-> "Women, it is said, rarely go out with men who say "Now spit." A good example: Dr. Myron Mandel, who put a tooth under his pillow and wished for love, but probably should've settled for a quarter."

* AlwaysABiggerFish: Will and Roger conclude that the giant rats were killed by the giant cat, and was killed by the spider, along with the giant dog.

* CanisMajor: Roger and Will find the corpse of a dog that ate their father's super-food and became a giant, after which it was killed by the spider.

* GiantSpider: A spider got into the super-food developed by Roger and Will's father and grew giant-sized. It then killed the smaller-but-still-giant cat and dog, and possibly the giant rats. When Roger and Will call the factory's elevator, the spider grabs them with its pedipalps and eats them.

* GleefulAndGrumpyPairing: Younger brother Will defends their father's legacy as a scientist, while older brother Roger snarkily calls him a "mad scientist".

->"It's a world much like our own, yet much ''un''like it. A twisted mirror of reality, in which a man can find himself cast out, made invisible by public acclamation, belonging no longer to society, but only to the gray reaches -- of the Twilight Zone."

->"A small footnote found in the court records of some parallel world. The name of Mitchell, who served his sentence of invisibility and learned his lesson well. ''Too'' well. This time, however, he will wear his invisibility like a shield of glory. A shield forged in the very heart -- of the Twilight Zone."

->"Women, it is said, rarely go out with men who say "Now spit." A good example: Dr. Myron Mandel, who put a tooth under his pillow and wished for love, but probably should've settled for a quarter."

Two brothers search for their father and find a factory full of dead, giant animals.
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* AlwaysABiggerFish: The brothers deduced that the giant rats were consumed by the giant cat who, along with the giant dog, were killed by something even bigger than them.
* CanisMajor: Roger and Will find a dead dog that ate their father's super food and became a giant. It was killed by something larger, which they later discover was a GiantSpider.
* DownerEnding: The brothers are captured and eaten by the GiantSpider.
* GiantSpider: A spider ate the super-food developed by Roger and Will's father in order to solve world hunger. It then killed the smaller but still giant cat and dog and possibly the giant rats. When Roger and Will call the elevator in their father's factory, the giant spider grabs them with its pedipalps and kills them.
* MegaNeko: Roger and Will find a dead house cat that grew as large as a lion or tiger after eating the super-food created by their father to solve world hunger. They are concerned because it was clearly killed by something larger, which turns out to be a GiantSpider.
* RodentsOfUnusualSize: Roger and Will learn that their father's super-food causes extreme growth when they find several dead giant rats in his factory, each bigger than the one before.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The brothers' father is never found, although he is most likely killed by the spider.
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A rude man is arrested and sentenced to a year of being "invisible", where everyone will completely ignore him.
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* AloneInACrowd: Mitchell is sentenced to be "invisible" for a year (really just aggressively ignored by everyone), and so spends most of the episode with people moving around him as if he wasn't there.
* BlindAndTheBeast: The only person to be kind to Mitchell Chaplin during his punishment is a blind man named Bennett Gershe who cannot see the implant telling others to ignore him. Subverted when Gershe is then told of Mitchell's status, after which he angrily curses Mitchell and leaves him.
* {{Dystopia}}: Possibly; Mitchell Chaplin undergoes a lengthy government-mandated CoolAndUnusualPunishment aimed at correcting his morality rather than due to a specific crime, and there are enforcement drones buzzing around everywhere, but the society as a whole seems peaceful and prosperous.
* DystopianEdict: The future society requires everyone to be friendly and warm to each other at all times. Anyone convicted of being "cold" must spend an entire year with a mark on their forehead that warns everyone else not to acknowledge their existence in any way.
* InvisibleJerkass: Mitchell Chaplin is punished by being given an implant that means others have to ignore him and act as if he was not there. He initially does things like walking into a women's changing room. It's a punishment because he soon starts going crazy from loneliness due to nobody talking to him, and everybody ignores him when he gets hit by a car (he survives in agony).
* ItsAllAboutMe: Mitchell manages to chat with a blind man named Bennett Gershe for a while before Gershe is told that the stranger talking to him is 'invisible' and he shouldn't be talking to him or even acknowledging his presence. When alerted to this, Gershe mutters "Damn you!"
* ALessonLearnedTooWell: The state sentences Mitchell Chaplin to a year of invisibility for the crime of coldness because he is not emotionally open with his family or co-workers. Mitchell initially relishes the opportunity to do anything that he wants with no repercussions as everyone must ignore him or face the same punishment themselves. However, the incredible loneliness eventually gets to him, and he longs for ordinary human interaction. Six months into his sentence, he begs an invisible woman to talk to him, but she refuses as she does not want her own sentence to be increased. Four months after his punishment has ended, the same woman approaches Mitchell and pleads with him to acknowledge her existence and ease her suffering. While Mitchell is initially reluctant, he soon hugs the woman and assures her that she is not invisible and that he cares about her. His own experience of invisibility taught him how difficult it is and led him to comfort another person in pain instead of ignoring her.
* MarkOfShame: Mitchell is punished for "coldness" by having a mark affixed to his forehead so everyone else will know to shun him.
* MechaMooks: Floating security bots monitor Mitchell Chaplin and other invisible people to ensure that no one violates Citizen's Law 24824 and interacts with them.
* PunishedForSympathy: A paradoxical example. Mitchell Chaplin is punished for "coldness" by becoming a pariah whom no one is allowed to acknowledge. Eventually, he serves out his sentence and is allowed to reenter society, but when he sees someone being punished in the same way, he now has too much compassion and empathy to ignore them, which leads to another punishment.
* SilentTreatment: Mitchell Chaplin is convicted of the crime of coldness towards others and is sentenced to a year of invisibility. He is forced to wear an implant on his forehead that alerts people that they are to ignore him and pretend not to see him no matter what. If they engage with him in any way, they are violating Citizen's Law 24824, which carries the penalty of at least one year of invisibility. Invisible people who speak to each other have another year added to their sentences.
* SurveillanceDrone: Floating security drones are used to watch for people breaking laws.
* {{Unperson}}: Mitchell is sentenced to a year of Unperson status as a punishment for "coldness". The authorities affix a mark to his forehead so everyone else will know to shun him.
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The Tooth Fairy decides to grant a dentist a wish.
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* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Dr. Myron Mandel is a severely depressed dentist who hates his job. He wishes that an attractive patient named Lydia Bixby will fall madly in love with him and that his other patients will respect him and look forward to their appointments. The Tooth Fairy grants his wish, but Myron is soon just as miserable as he was before, if not more so. He doesn't have a moment's peace as his patients hound him at every turn and Lydia's love for him is suffocating. Myron eventually runs away and hops a freight train... which is filled with hobos who turn out to be former dentists who suffered the exact same fate.
* JackassGenie: Dr. Myron wishes for his crush to love him back and for his patients to respect and look forward to their appointments. The Tooth Fairy grants it, but his crush's love is suffocating, and his patients now won't leave him alone. He ends up hopping a freight train to get away, where he meets other dentists having gone through the same thing. Apparently, the Tooth Fairy is running a con because he wants more people to lose their teeth.
* ToothFairy: The Tooth Fairy appears in Dr. Myron Mandel's office after his failed suicide attempt and offers to give him anything that he wants. Myron wishes to be liked and respected by his patients and for Lydia Bixby to fall madly in love with him. The constant adulation soon proves to be too much for Myron and he hops a freight train. He meets five homeless men who turn out to be former dentists who had their own run-ins with the Tooth Fairy. Myron learns that he was just a pawn in the Tooth Fairy's scheme to get dentists out of the way so that he will have more business.
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!! To See the Invisible Man

A rude man is arrested and sentenced to a year of being "invisible", where everyone will completely ignore him.

!! Tooth and Consequences

The Tooth Fairy decides to grant a dentist a wish.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The brothers' father is never found, although he is most likely killed by the spider.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The brothers' father is never found although he is most likely killed by the spider.

The Tooth Fairy decides to grant a dentist a wish.